Category Archives: Food

Organize Fruit with a Plant Stand

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

To fuel our healthy living, we’ve been buying tons and tons of fruit.  The reality is that when you buy lots of fruit, a regular ol’ fruit bowl just won’t suffice- no one wants to have to take out all of the bananas and apples to get to the cuties at the bottom of the bowl.  Ridiculous, right?  On top of that, our fruit bowl was simply not our style.  It is fine for an occasional serving dish, but it lacked the beauty required to be a real “display” piece in our kitchen. Now, in truth, I’ve been looking for the “right” fruit display for at least six months, with no luck.  I wanted simple, but fun, and modern, but with a bit of vintage inspiration.  That’s not too specific, is it?  I don’t know… maybe I’m hard to please.  This is what I was working with: I know, it wasn’t that bad, but the organization was what really bothered me!  Digging for fruit is not exactly what I call fun and you run the risk of beating up your fruit before you get the chance to eat it.  Double bad.  So, I was determined to find a solution. The solution came when my friend and I were perusing our local Ross store.  In the plant section, I found this three-tiered stand, and at a mere $12, I couldn’t pass it up!  Not only was it modern, but it was simple and the three tiers offered the perfect amount of space and division to accommodate our fruit habit! Now, did I give you enough pictures of fruit? Guess I really like the new display! WHAT’S THE CRAZIEST THING YOU’VE ORGANIZED LATELY? Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on netvibes share via … Continue reading

Posted in Food, Get Organized, Kitchen, Shopping | 3 Comments

Rockin’ the Evil Turkey

Posted on November 24, 2011 by

Hopefully it’s not truly evil, but this Thanksgiving, we’re cooking up the “Evil Turkey” Recipe!  We love food loaded with flavor and spice, so hopefully this will rock our socks! Ingredients: 1 onion, chopped 1 (12 ounce) jar roasted red peppers, drained and chopped 1 cup whiskey 1/2 cup minced garlic 1 (22 pound) whole turkey, neck and giblets removed 1 (7 ounce) can chipotle chilies in adobo sauce roasting bag for a large turkey Directions: Preheat an oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Stir together the onion, roasted red peppers, whiskey, and garlic and place this mixture inside the cavity of the bird. Mince chipotle peppers in a food processor until about the consistency of spaghetti sauce. Rub half of the chipotles on the outside of the turkey, and place the rest inside the bird cavity. Place turkey in a roasting bag; close the bag according to the bag directions, and place onto a roasting pan. Bake the turkey in the preheated oven until no longer pink at the bone and the juices run clear, about 3 1/2 hours. An instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh, near the bone should read 180 degrees F (82 degrees C). Remove the turkey from the oven, and allow to rest in a warm area 10 to 15 minutes before slicing.   Hope everyone is having a wonderful Thanksgiving! Lots of love and thanks, ~Ashley Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share with Stumblers Tumblr it Tweet about it Buzz it up Subscribe to the comments on this post Print for later Bookmark in Browser Tell a friend

Posted in Celebrations, Food | Leave a comment

My Awesome Wine & Beer Tasting Birthday Party

Posted on October 19, 2011 by

As mentioned in yesterday’s post, my birthday didn’t just consist of a weekend getaway; Eric and my mom spearheaded a proper party celebration with some help from my friend Rachel.  Now, this wasn’t a surprise party by any means, but this was my first birthday celebration in my adult life that I didn’t have a hand in planning!  For this control-freak/former event-planner… this was foreign territory!  In the end, it was almost like a surprise party! Eric took the lead to get the ball rolling.  He hacked my email account and sent out an Evite to the people he believed I’d want there!  How sweet is that!!!  I seriously had 43 printed pages of contacts in my personal gmail account and he went through each and every one!  If that’s not dedication and love, I don’t know what is!!! Then, he broke down the details of the party.  I had mentioned that a wine tasting party sounded fun, so he took that and ran with it!  After some discussion with my mom, they decided to do a wine and beer tasting party since some the guys are big wine drinkers! In the Evite, Eric and my mom told all the women to bring their favorite bottle of wine ($15 limit) and all of the men to bring a 6-pack of their favorite micro-brew! Then, he decided to make things a competition!!!  Ya, we get competitive up in this house on birthdays!  After all… this is a “tasting” and what’s the point of a tasting if you don’t have a winner!  We even had official score cards and bought prizes for the winners! Eric, my mom, and Rachel took care of the food. But seriously, I was so pumped about the party that Eric let me help with the menu planning … Continue reading

Posted in DIY, Food, Life, Party Time | 2 Comments

When the Boys are Away, the Girls Will Play!

Posted on July 29, 2011 by

YUP, it’s true!  And Eric totally knows it too!   I LOVE my girl-time!  I seriously have been blessed with some of the most amazing girlfriends in the whole world too!  They are all very different and we’ve all done completely different things with our lives, but for some reason, we just work!  Maybe it’s the variety that keeps it interesting?!?!?  I’ll just go with that! Anyways, remember way back HERE, when I said that Eric ran off to the cabin with the boys, WELL… that cued my girls night planning!  Last time we had girls’ night, it was winter, so we cozied up in the living room next to the fireplace and ate hor devours and drank yummy wine, talking the night away!  It. Was. Perfect.  This time around… the weather is totally different like 50 degrees different!  So, this time we planned for wine and hor devours around the pool!  Absolutely. Perfect. I decided to co-host a girls’ night with my girlfriend Rachel (seen here) to mix some of our friends, since we both think we have wonderful friends!  In the end, we had about 10 girls poolside.    Sadly, we didn’t take pictures… except for these few…   Our little Ollie stole the show as usual!   BUT, the food, drink, and company came in a close second!  It was a great time!  Safe to say that our lack of pictures was due to just that… having too good of a time!  So thankful for those amazing girlfriends that really just round out making your life blessed!  LOVE YOU LADIES!!! ANYONE ELSE HAVE A SHOUT-OUT TO THEIR FRIENDS?  DO THEY TOTALLY MAKE YOUR LIFE WONDERFUL TOO??? Blog this! Bookmark on Delicious Digg this post Recommend on Facebook Share on Linkedin Share on netvibes share via Reddit Share … Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Life, Party Time | 5 Comments

Eric Turned 30! It was a GIANT Weekend!

Posted on July 28, 2011 by

Yup, that might be a terrible play on words, but it truly was a GIANT birthday, like a full-on two-day celebration!  Yup, I love the hubby, what can I say!  The basics of the weekend: Saturday- SF Giants game with a small group of eleven Sunday- Birthday BBQ and swim party at the house for our family and a few close friends Now, as a bullet list, that doesn’t look like much, but when you look back at our to-do list and what we actually accomplished… it was a lot!  BUT, how can you really appreciate a celebration if you don’t have to put a little work into it!  Suffice to say we did our best to meet our to-do’s but definitely got the most important ones done… like the food!  To sum it all up, the weekend was an absolute blast (filled with what I now lovingly call… the comedy of errors- i.e. whatever could go wrong, did go wrong)!  So, without further a-do, this is what it looked like (thanks to cell phone pics and my sister-in-law, Brittany’s camera- ya, more on that with my “comedy of errors post”)… SF Giants Game Part of our group! Eric and two of his brothers Eric and his dad (ain’t he handsome!)… Please ignore the nasty old hat he INSISTED on wearing! Me and Manda poundin’ fists/ drink holders! Eric’s dad rockin’ the fist!  (He’s the glass artist who did our custom wedding party gifts and our hanging glass piece from our House Crashers Episode!) Eric’s cousin Matt and his beautiful fiance Amanda Now… Doug’s rockin’ the fist!  Let’s just say this bad boy got passed around! Our Seats! Right ON the field!!! There is actually a GIANT slide inside that Coke bottle for all the kiddos!  How fun!!! We sat … Continue reading

Posted in Celebrations, Food, Life, Party Time | 5 Comments

101 Ways to Use a Meyer Lemon

Posted on June 14, 2011 by

So y’all know we’ve been landscaping hard-core this spring/summer as shown here and here.  And I know you guys know that we put a lot of thought into our plant/tree selections as seen here.  BUT, what you didn’t know… is that one tree selection was going to be a total give-in!  YUP, we didn’t intend to, but we found a tree after our own hearts, that just happened to be named after us!!! When we set out on our plant shopping adventure, we knew that we wanted some kind of citrus tree, but we didn’t know what kind exactly. We just figured that whatever tree we got, it had to be useful!  No fruit shall go to waste here, whether we use it all, or give away what we can’t use!  Anyways, who knew there could be so many varieties of citrus trees… seriously!  You thought I’d learn my lesson after checking out and researching the endless amounts of palm trees!  NOPE! Well, I think the tree gods might have been looking out for us this time!  We found THE ONE in a matter of seconds!  And it wasn’t just because of the name!  So, I’m sure you guessed it by now, but our last name is Meyer, and while it can be spelled several different ways… this tree shared our spelling!  Soooooo exciting!!! After we fell in love with the tree simply because of its name, we did some web-research and questioned the nursery specialist and we learned that Meyer lemons happen to be very popular because of the wide variety of uses!  In fact, Meyer lemons are a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange.  Score and double-score!  We get a tree named after and it’s useful!!! Just so you guys can share in our excitement, while … Continue reading

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Posted in Food | 19 Comments